…because liberty is not negotiable.

About the future of libertarianism and a rant against „faux libertarians“

It’s a great debate now in the USA and beyond what libertarianism really means. We see more and more „faux“ libertarians- like for example Clint Eastwood and Peter Thiel- rallying behind Trump and his alt-right fanbase, shouting stupid crap like „All lives matter“ and „Feminism is cancer“. Yet they claim to be the real libertarians. Time to sort this out.

The second slogan is so dumb I won’t even discuss it. The first one is used today to disrupt discussions by white people, who at best are useful idiots, at worst white supremacists, who don’t want to discuss the issues of black communities. They don’t stand that it’s not about them in this moment, but about other people. They are like children, who are angry that their parents are mostly focused on the currently sick child. Children don’t know better, adults should.

Either libertarianism is a philosophy only for privileged white dudes not giving a fucking damn about social and societal issues, who have a very narrowed incomplete vision of freedom or it’s about freedom for everyone and broader social change, i.e. change also outside of the economic system.

The faux libertarians surely whine about the fact, that there are not many women in their movement and not many people from minorities and they wonder why libertarianism is WRONGLY called an ideology only for privileged rich people. But they are the main reason it’s seen like this. They are unable to provide a better image to the public by their very own actions.

And they are also the ones to blame for the fact, that many people won’t see any other option than voting for a growing welfare state, voting for the Democrats, because those jokes of libertarians will forever be unable to explain why less government and freer markets would help the poor. Those faux libertarians even decided to align themselves with the real-life incarnation of a leftist caricature of an evil capitalist: Donald Trump. Do they want to prove right all prejudices against libertarians? I only see two choices: either they leave the boat for good or those people will sink libertarianism forever and the label is lost to the alt-right.

Personally, if the wrong side wins, I will accept this and give up the label for good. After all, I stand for myself and my ideas of freedom, the rule of law, property and civil rights etc don’t need the label „libertarian“ (anyway, I prefer „classical liberal“ and in Europe I always use this old label), but I still hope, it can be saved and considering that the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket is constituted by the governors Johnson and Weld, who may not be perfect candidates, but who at least stand on the right side of this debate here, I would argue that the other side should rather look for a new label. In fact, there is already one. Alt-right. The home of Milo, Alex Jones, Stefan Molyneux and other nutcases. Just leave, you goddamned fools.